'The Mystery and Beauty of Death'

Today I've come to speak to you about death. Death is a heavy topic that is hard for me to understand, yet I find myself thinking about it constantly, about what role it plays in every new context I learn about in my classes, as well as in everyday life. In a way, death is what has brought me here. I came to divinity school with the hopes of providing end of life spiritual care to the dying. I will share a brief story of what made me feel called to this line of work.

 

I spent a number of years working as a receptionist or registrar in an emergency room. One day as I arrived, the physician on staff that evening approached me and informed a child had passed away and he was going to inform the family once I was settled in my position at the front desk in the waiting room. I was to be responsible for the front-facing interactions with family and limit visitors to the child's room to two people at a time.

After I sat at the desk, I informed the physician that I was ready. He came out to speak privately to the immediate family, and I noticed there were at least 30 other people waiting news of the child's condition in the waiting area. After the physician informed the family, I could see the news spread through the crowd in the waiting room like a wave. People fell onto their knees, some collapsed into chairs, many screamed aloud to God in anguish. However, certain peacefulness filled my body and it almost felt right that I was there to interact with these people and form this function in their lives. I would later describe this experience almost as a mystical one. Perhaps that feeling of love and calm and duty that overcame my body was the first and only manifestation of God in my life.

There are other stories like this in my life that made me feel called to serve others spiritually as a hospital chaplain. Many of these stories involved death or grief in some way so I would like to find a way to specialize in end of life care. Death is interesting to me for many reasons. It is an experience that unites all of humankind. Death is a process. It creeps, it follows us, it is mysterious and elusive, yet ever present. Death has been represented in movies, art, and popular culture in myriad ways, even personified into the specter known in English as the Reaper that exists in various forms across many cultures.

As we are surrounded by a mass casualty event here known as the COVID-19 pandemic my interest has only grown in death. Now more than ever end of life spiritual care is of the utmost importance. So too is a place for the living to discuss that. As a culture, we are fascinated by death yet have few avenues with which to discuss it.

Students at the divinity school are doing something about this, and we are making a difference in each others' lives as well as the greater community by creating these spaces to have these conversations. Talking about death with each other can help us understand its mystery and its beauty. Talking about death can help us process loss and understand grief.

What is grief anyway? Is it a process? A goal? When does it begin? Does grief end? Should it end? How can we understand the pervasive absence in our lives of someone who has died? These are just a few of the questions that I encourage you to ask each other. To quote Reverend Matthew Potts, "No one wants to talk about death, but everyone wants to talk about death." I invite you to do so. You just might be surprised about what beautiful experiences you can have and the new ways of building relationships when we have these conversations with each other.

The spiritual care surrounding death interests me because it is complex. Death is not just a physical process. It involves legal, financial, emotional, and spiritual concerns. I've also observed that if a person is dying, they have different spiritual needs than the individuals around them that love them. My interest in death is not just for the dead and dying, but those they leave behind, they need care too.

And as I continue to attempt to understand death, I have come to see that is not just the end of life, it can also mark a beginning. The word death has been used to describe transformations and transformative experiences. For example, I've heard people describe sobriety as the death of the suffering self of the alcoholic and the beginning of a new life created in what is thereafter alcoholic recovery. I see the beauty of death every year as the seasons change. Winter brings with it the falling of leads, the deaths of plants, bitter cold, and shorter days. However, winter always comes with it the promise of spring, of new life literally springing forth from the earth from even the most impossible places, of leaves bursting from the trees, the calls of birds returning from their long journeys from other places.

I do not claim to know what happens when we die or after we die, but what I can do and what I want to do is help prepare people for that journey. Not only those going on the journey, but those staying behind.